SHORTLISTED FOR THE BUTLER LITERARY AWARD 2022
'Powerful' Irish Times
'Darkly beautiful' Irish Sunday Independent
'Captivating' Jan Carson
'Dazzling' Danielle McLaughlin
'Utterly absorbing' Kit de Waal
'Brilliantly observed' Elaine Feeney
'A huge achievement' Niamh Boyce
In 1982, Nuala Malin struggles to stay connected, to her husband, to motherhood, to the smallness of her life in the belly of a place that is built on hate and stagnation. Her daughter Sam and baby son PJ keep her tethered to this life she doesn't want. She finds unexpected refuge with a seventeen-year-old boy, but this relationship is only temporary, a sticking plaster on a festering wound. It cannot last and when her chance to leave Northern Ireland comes, Nuala takes it.
In 1994, Sam Malin plans escape. She longs for a life outside her dysfunctional family, far away from the North and all its troubles, free from her quiet brooding father Patsy, who never talks about her mother, Nuala; a woman Sam barely knew, who abandoned them twelve years ago. She finds solace in music, drugs and her best friend Becca, but most of all in an illicit relationship with a jagged, magnetic older man.
She is drawn to him, and he to her, in a way she can't yet comprehend.
Sam is more like her mother than she knows.
Publisher: John Murray Press
ISBN: 9781529373578
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 516 g
Dimensions: 236 x 158 x 32 mm
The narrative pings along - as compulsive as it is shocking . . . a brilliant debut - the best Irish one in a strong year - Sue Leonard, Irish Examiner, Books of the Year
A gorgeous coming of age story, exploring the mother-daughter relationship with generosity and nuance - Louise O'Neill
A brave, essential book . . . beautiful - Luke Cassidy
Searing . . . with a sharp humour and a highly original voice . . . This is not a 'coming of age' story, a love story, or a dissection of marriage; it's all of these things at once, and somehow more nakedly raw than those genres, alone, could possibly capture. - Totally Dublin
Lyrical and explosive in equal measure, this book pulses with love and loss - Sheila Armstrong
The Quiet Whispers Never Stop by Olivia Fitzsimons is the traumatic story of a girl's turbulent final year in convent secondary school and her difficult relations with her family, boyfriends, exams and school... More
I almost stopped reading this book several times as Sam's story was difficult for me to read but I am so glad that I stuck with it. The quality of the writing is amazing for a debut and the way the characters... More
Not always an easy read, especially for those of us who grew up in NI and know only too well the claustrophobia she presents so authentically. The story was gripping, following Sam and hoping that she would be ok. The... More
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